The invention relates to a method for controlling data packets in gateways, particularly RTP (Real Time Transport Protocol) data packets, and to an arrangement for this.
A computer network, for example an Ethernet, is already frequently used today for transmitting voice and video data. Particularly in the case of a video conference, rapid transmission of the data is important so that the participants do not notice any jumps in time and/or delays, but instead experience continuous transmission. The data packets for voice and video transmission are generally characterized by an RT protocol.
The RTP data packets transported via the Ethernet are routed in a gateway to a host processor arranged at that point. The host processor filters the RTP data packets out of the Ethernet's data stream and supplies the filtered packets to subsystems, for example digital system processors (DSP), for further processing. The subsystems can process the received data further, for example can recode them into a PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) representation, and can then forward them in a conventional manner.
In the opposite direction, the DSPs recode voice and video signals into RTP data packets and transmit them to a host processor. The host processor in turn forwards the data packets to the interface device for the Ethernet in order to insert the data packets into the Ethernet data stream.
The host processor is involved in receiving and transmitting RTP data. Particularly when there is a large volume of RTP data, this results in a high utilization level for the host processor, whose performance capacity is now not available to other processes.
It is therefore one potential object of the present invention to specify a method and an arrangement for controlling data packets in a gateway which significantly relieve the load on the host processor, this in turn resulting in a marked increase in performance for other tasks.